The invention relates to a plate mould for continuously casting steel, which mould has a carrying frame and walls supported therein that are provided with cooling means and delimit the mould cavity at least one side wall is movable transversely relative to the mould axis and the end walls are comprised of a holding plate, a supporting plate and a cooled copper plate that can be clamped between the side walls.
In continuous casting plants it is necessary to be able to quickly change or exchange the end walls for changing the dimensions, in particular the thickness, of continuously cast slabs.
Plate moulds have been known which allow for an exchange of the end walls, but their removal and installation requires a lot of work and time and thus for substantial periods of time the plant is at a standstill. In a known plate mould, hydraulic cylinders are used for clamping the end walls between the side walls, the hydraulic cylinders being supported against the carrying frame. This design has the disadvantage that the clamping force is dependent upon pressure fluctuations in the hydraulic system; if the mould is turned off for a long period of time, the cylinders become unpressurized. When the hydraulic system fails, there is an immediate danger of a breakthrough of the molten core of the slab, since the side walls are pressed apart.
In the known plate mould the end walls are fixed on the carrying frame by a hang-in and bracing means, wherein the hang-in means for an end wall has a T-shaped guide in the supporting plate and a sliding block that is resiliently fixed on the carrying frame via a bolt. With such a hang-in means a quick exchange of the end walls is not possible. A further disadvantage which has to be stressed is the fact that the resilient fastening of the end walls on the frame permits position changes when the casting conditions change. Such position changes of the end walls have an extremely detrimental influence upon the quality of the slab.